Carpe Jugulum

 

By Terry Pratchett

The king of Lancre just became a father for the first time and he felt it would be a good idea to invite the neighbors to his daughter's naming ceremony. A bad idea, since the neighboring country, Uberwald, is a land ruled by vampires and inviting vampires into your home is never going to work out well.

Sure enough, the vampire family, Count Magpyr and his wife, son and daughter move into the castle and take over the king's mind and turn the locals into cattle to be "milked" for their blood.  The queen, Magrat, who is a witch, escapes the castle with her baby and joins forces with her old friends, a coven of witches, who take it upon themselves to rid the kingdom of Lancre of the Magpyr family and their vampire associates. But they are going to need a little help, which comes in the form of a priest of Om (a cult know for its history of burning witches) and a young phoenix. 

This was a fairly good read. The poor king comes off as a complete fool and does very little to save his kingdom and Granny Weatherwax, a powerful witch and a recurring character in the series, spends most of the story stumbling around the countryside getting wet and falling down and ends up bitten by the vampires. Still it all comes together in the end, with the various characters doing their bit to bring down the reign of the vampire invaders. 

Here is a review by Publishers Weekly.

Double Eagle : Latigo No. 4

 

By Dean Owen

Latigo started out as a comic strip series written and drawn by Stan Lynde. The novels are based on the comic strip series and there are four books in the series, all written by Dean Owen. Double Eagle is the last book in the Latigo series.

Coming into the series with the fourth book, there is a lot of backstory that the author has to update the reader on. Cole Latigo Cantrell has quite a history, including fighting in the American Civil War and, after the war, facing down the many bad guys who are thriving in the lawless lands of the western frontier. His main goal in life is bringing justice to the tycoon, Claudius Max, who he believes ordered the murder of Cantrell's parents back when Cantrell was still fighting for the Union. 

All through books one to three, Cantrell has failed to bring Max to justice, while Max continues to expand his railroad empire. Spoiler: he fails in this story too. In fact, he saves Max from certain death at the end of the novel. But this does nothing to resolve the conflict between the two men.

Cantrell is constantly on the move, fighting bad guys and bedding attractive young women. All the bad guys end up defeated and all the women end up disappointed when Cantrell refuses to follow up the bedding with a proposal, as in this edited conversation with an old girl friend, Aspen Groves:

Aspen: "Why not come away with me, Cole? ... You know I've been in love with you from the first." 

Cantrell: "You collect men like a stable collects flies."

Aspen: "You know it isn't love ... not like it is with you.  ... by now we could have a little house out there [Frisco] and maybe a kid and another one on the way." 

Cantrell: "I like you, Aspen. But there's a lot of women I like." 

As Cantrell works his way across the landscape, leaving behind a trial of dead men's bodies and broken-hearted females, Claudius Max is making a terrible mistake by  placing his confidence in a new employee who is not the man Max believes him to be. And only his old enemy, Cole Latigo Cantrell, can save Max from the new guy and his gang of killers. 

This was an OK read, given what it is, pulp fiction of the western variety. The sex scenes are understated, with no genitals described in intimate detail.  The constant confrontations become quite tedious, but not, I suppose, for the readers whose main interest in the story is in that sort of thing. 

Of course, we are supposed to admire Cantrell and despise his enemies. I had no trouble hating the trouble makers. But I could no longer like Cantrell after reading the above conversation between him and Aspen Groves. In it he comes off as petty and callous. In other words, she is good enough to screw but not good enough to marry. Sorry, but that makes Cantrell an jerk.

For what it is, and me not being a fan of the genre, it still is still a pretty good read. A bit thin on plot, not surprisingly, since the main point of the book is the fighting and screwing. (Lots more fighting than screwing, though.)

The Zero Stone

 

By Andre Norton

When Murdoc was a youngster, his father, Hywel, came to possess a strange ring found on the body of an alien floating in space. The ring was unusually large and contained a dull, unappealing crystal. But Hywel, a expert gemologist, had a feeling that the ring was more than its less than attractive appearance suggested. So he hid it in a secret place known only to himself and his son, Murdoc. 

Unfortunately, someone came looking for that ring. They did not find it even though they beat Hywel to death trying to force its location from him. Murdoc took the ring and left his home, to become a traveling gemologist like Hywel had been in his younger days.

The ring brought the same bad luck to Murdoc as it had done to his father. Employed by another gem trader, Murdoc alone managed to escape a trap set to murder them both. Using the slim resources remaining to him, gemstones, he managed to book passage on a spaceship. Things turned sour very quickly when, while making a brief stop on a frontier planet, the ship's cat got loose and ate a black, fuzzy rock or seed and the crew blamed Murdoc. However the cat seemed to suffer no ill consequences. Until they realized it was pregnant. It chose Murdoc's bunk on which to give birth to a strange little creature that was half cat and half something else. 

Murdoc awoke to discover he was extremely ill and locked in his cabin with the alien baby. As he recovered from his illness, still locked inside, he overheard the crew discussing their plans to weld the door of his cabin shut and leave him to die in fear of the plague that had infected him. At this point the alien creature began to speak to him telepathically. It told him what to do to save himself.  Murdoc, following its instructions, went to the ship's bay and put on a spacesuit and exited the ship. What the plan was after doing so is unclear. While outside, though, the mysterious ring came to life and began to pull Murdoc away from the spaceship and its dubious safety and Murdoc was unable to withstand its pull, taking Murdoc and the little alien, stashed in an airtight box strapped to Murdoc's side, along for a ride to the unknown. 

Murdoc is one unlucky but lucky SOB. Everywhere he goes, there is someone or something out to murder him. Even when rescued, his rescuers want to murder him. His daddy's alien ring was a curse to his father and it is a curse to Murdoc too. He never has the good sense to throw it away, the attraction it exerts on those who hold it is too strong. The connection between Murdoc, the ring and the catlike alien is never made clear, how the three came together in that unlikely way. Other than that unanswered and annoying question, this was a pretty good story. Although Norton can never resist having her characters suffer from lack of food, water and various painful injuries. They always have their asses handed to them but still manage to survive and win in the end. 

This book does have a sequel, The Uncharted Stars, in which Murdoc and the alien, Eet, have their own spaceship and are on the hunt for the origin of the powerful crystals like the one in the ancient ring, the Zero Stone. 

Here is a review by Kirkus Reviews.

Sounding Off

 

By Ted Staunton

Set in a small town in Canada, the start finds the main character, Sam Foster, 14, hanging out with his friends. Two things happen: his close friend Darryl has shoved a crash helmet on Sam's head, which got stuck on. And Sam has fallen in love with a girl he sees performing on stage at the local talent show. After Sam finally gets the helmet off his head, he is on the hunt to find out who the girl singer is and get to know her. 

In his hunt for the girl, Madison Dakota, Sam gets to know his friends and classmates better and his neighbors better and takes some important steps on the path to young adulthood.  

This was an ok book to read. Not a lot happens in it. Sam manages to find Madison but not much results from that knowledge. The rock band he is in breaks up but he soon joins another band. He struggles with some school assignments, most of his struggles of which would be solved if he would simply do the work required. 

Sam is a harmless, well-meaning puppy of a boy as is this story, intended for middle school age readers. There are no great mysteries, no great challenges, no fantastic adventures. Just a boy in a small town, experiencing everyday life. 

Man and Dog

 

By Brad Steiger

From the book jacket:

"Brad Steiger explores the bond between human and canine by relating true stories of the remarkable social-spiritual contract that has existed between humankind and its loyal companions for thousands of years. He shares fascinating true stories about the creatures that have more than earned the title of 'man's best friend,' such as:

• A man, paralyzed and alone, who was kept alive by his dog for nine days
• The dog that brought a girl back from a five-week coma
• A dog named 'Blaze' that saved a family from fire

Brad Steiger also reveals the findings of current medical research into the positive effects pets have on our lives, from lowering blood pressure and alleviating stress to easing the pain of bereavement.

In this charming, thought-provoking, often astounding book, Brad Steiger fully substantiates the 'ancient contract between dogs and human.'"

The book jacket also includes a review by Publishers Weekly: "Remarkable tales of canine heroism...Steiger gives advice on how to communicate with dogs, discusses the value of pet therapy and offers several instances of ghost dogs appearing to their owners. Also covered are findings of current medical research into the positive effects of pets on humans, such as lowered blood pressure...enjoyable."

The book is chock full of mystical claims and other such other worldly stuff. I enjoyed the ghost stories and the stories about the bond between people and their dogs and the stories of dogs helping people. But the mystical content did not interest me and I skipped most of it. 

Bolo

 

By Keith Laumer

A short story collection about Bolos, an intelligent military machine similar to a tank.

• A Short History of the Bolo Fighting Machine: exactly what the title says.
• The Night of the Trolls: Man comes out of suspended animation to discover a world turned upside down by war.
• Courier: Retief (of the CDT) is sent to stop an invasion of a human-settled world by an aliens.
• Field Test: War breaks out and a general decides it is an opportunity to test the newest weapon, a Bolo Fighting Machine.
• The Last Command: A long-buried Bolo suddenly wakes up and emerges from underground to begin war against innocent civilians.
• A Relic of War: The local townspeople think the broken down old Bolo in the village square is merely a monument to the past. But then it reactivates.
• Combat Unit: Hostile aliens have found an old Bolo and are fooling around with it when it suddenly comes to life.

These stories are OK. Not really a subject I am interested in, though. Descriptions of fights, battles and machinery are boring to me. I did skip a lot of the text because I just don't care about such. For some reason, I thought Bolo was the name of a person, a pirate or criminal or politician. Came as a surprise that it is a fancy, self-aware tank.